Hotteok

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Korean food has been a top favorite of mine since the 80s. When I went in 1987 I only had excellent restaurant food but sadly never tried their street food. I'm still discovering lots of yummy Korean dishes with the help of food blogs and of course YouTube where I saw a favorite street food called hotteok, a fried pancake filled with brown sugar. They look very similar to the Filipino piaya but with different dough ingredients. 

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Knish

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I've always wanted to make knish but kept forgetting until it was mentioned and became somehow significant to the golem in my 2013 favorite book, the most fascinating and captivating fantasy novel THE GOLEM AND THE JINNIHelene Wecker. If you love fantasy, adventure, historical fiction with mystical, magical, and hint of romance elements, then this is the book for you. I can't recommend it highly enough. For Syrian part of the book, there's a baked cheese dessert called Kanafeh which I will try to make next time if I can find all the ingredients.

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Moussaka

It was more than 25 years ago when I cooked moussaka. I can't remember the recipe I used which came from a magazine, probably Good Housekeeping. A niece asked for a recipe and luckily I have one in my Greek cookbook. After posting the whole recipe on her Facebook timeline, I suddenly wanted to make too. I have forgotten that Moussaka is really yummy!

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Leftover Steak Sandwich

For Independence Day dinner yesterday, I charcoal grilled a moderately sized tri-tip steak. We seem to eat like birds because there's still a big chunk of leftover. Today, I diced a few slices and added to sauteed mushrooms and filled whole wheat folded flat bread. Delicious and satisfying sandwich/es!

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Tort Wafer

I saw on Amazon.com large wafer sheets from Croatia called tort wafers for making a layer cake called oblatne or oblaten. I'm always game to try new recipes specially sweet ones so I got 2 packages of 5 sheets each.

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No-Bake Mini Quark Cheesecakes with Crystallized Flowers

Clearing and rearranging storage cabinets produce yummy stuff. My mini cheesecake pan hasn't been used for ages so I made no-bake cheesecake with the freshly made quark cheese I had in the refrigerator. These cakes have the consistency of a mousse but without gelatin. I added just a little mascarpone and also whipped heavy cream and for flavor I used rosewater for half of the mixture and lavender water for the other half. You are free to use your favorite flavoring such as lemon, orange, or almond. The cheesecakes are very light and creamy with very subtle floral flavors.

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Mizu Yokan

I came across the Japanese sweets called mizuyokan while reading a Japanese novel REAL WORLD written by Natsuo Kirino. The sweets I found out are made with a mixture of kanten (agar or gelatin), water, and azuki (red bean paste). One of the websites I visited has a recipe for matcha and white bean paste. The white bean paste may be dried navy or lima beans. I used a pound of dried lima beans to make the white paste. The flavor is very mild on its own which is great when used for the matcha (green tea powder) bean cakes. I also made with sweet azuki paste I already had in the freezer and adjusted the sugar to my taste. I love the smoky flavor of azuki beans; still my favorite.

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